The invention concerns a discharge hopper for a tray discharge station for serially discharging shaft trays filled with rod-shaped products, comprising a conveying element for carrying away the products flowing from the shaft trays as well as a connecting means for coupling the shaft trays to be emptied to the conveying element, the connecting means being arranged substantially parallel to and spaced apart from the conveying element to form a channel for the product stream and comprising an opening for passage of the products from the shaft tray into the channel.
Furthermore the invention concerns a method for serially discharging shaft trays filled with rod-shaped products with the steps of: delivering a shaft tray to be emptied into the region of a channel formed by a conveying element and a connecting means, opening the upside-down shaft tray, and carrying away the products which drop out of the shaft tray into the channel, by the conveying element.
Such apparatuses and methods are used in particular in the tobacco-processing industry, in the processing of rod-shaped products. For different reasons, cigarettes, filter rods or the like are kept for storage in containers, the so-called trays. Preferably, the containers are designed as shaft trays in which the products lie in several shafts separate from each other. For further processing of the stored products, they are discharged to subsequent devices, e.g. packing machines or the like, or funnelled into an existing mass flow. For automated delivery of the articles from the containers, usually discharge stations are available. The discharge stations comprise in a known manner a delivery means for product-filled trays, a discharge hopper, a removal device for the empty trays and a transfer device by means of which the full trays are transported from the delivery means into the region of the discharge hopper and the empty trays are transported from the discharge hopper into the region of the removal device. The discharge hopper essentially includes a conveying element for carrying away the products flowing from the shaft trays and a connecting means for coupling the shaft trays to be emptied to the conveying element. The transfer device can vary in construction. Widespread are pivot devices which have a receptacle for one or more trays and which are assigned a movable closure element for the open-topped trays. This closure element as part of the transfer device is usually a so-called slide bottom which in the closed state prevents the products from dropping out of the shafts of the shaft tray into the region of the connecting means during rotation or during upside-down pivoting.
From document GB 2 017 618 A is known e.g. an apparatus having the features of the preamble of claim 1. The apparatus for emptying shaft trays disclosed in the GB document includes a discharge hopper which comprises a conveying element and a connecting means. The shaft trays to be emptied are coupled to the conveying element in the region of the connecting means. For discharge, the closure means associated with the shaft tray is opened so that the products drop directly out of the shaft tray into the channel formed by the connecting means and the conveying element. In this case each shaft of the shaft tray is assigned a flap, the flaps of the shafts of a shaft tray opening one after the other. This apparatus or the corresponding method however has the drawback that a shaft must first be completely emptied and the flap which opens the shaft must be closed again before the next shaft can be emptied. This leads firstly to delays and hence an ineffective discharge operation. Secondly, the product stream breaks away on the continuously driven conveying element. In other words, no continuous product stream is formed within the channel, so that products lie on the conveying element in a disorderly fashion, which can lead to quality problems.